Geocaching

Subscribe

Powered By

Thursday, April 22, 2010

So, it's Earth Day, and I wanted to talk a little bit about my role and what I'm doing to try and conserve and be more eco-friendly to the world. While I wish I was doing more, I was reading this article from Cheap, Healthy, Good yesterday and it reminded me that sometimes we can only do some things and not everything, so every little bit counts. From the article:

Is a cheap banana better for us when it exploits workers in a different hemisphere? If we didn’t buy that banana, would they have jobs at all? Can you realistically expect someone to buy a $17 chicken twenty miles away, when a $3 one exists right around the corner?

Sometimes, you just can't do it all. Here's what I am doing to try and save the world:

Continuing to drive my car. For now, it gets about 27 mpg, which is pretty good for a non-hybrid. In not buying a new car, I'm not producing a new car and plastics, etc that have to be made in producing a new one. I keep my emissions in check, and try and do everything I can to use less gasoline.

I buy as much local food as I can. I live in farm country, so it's easy for me to stop at a produce stand on my way home from work during the summer. I eat as much local produce as I can, and I LOVE it! YUM! My eggs and milk also come from local dairies. I'm trying to get into buying grass-fed beef and free range chicken from local farms, but I have yet to make the leap. One step that must be done first is that I must clean out my freezer, which is currently over flowing with a lot of I don't know what.

I use reusable grocery bags. I love them, and the single best thing about them is that they've freed us from the mountain of disposable plastic bags that we were drowning under for years and years.

I use less chemical cleaning products than I used to. I try to clean as much as I can with water, plus baking soda and vinegar. It's actually going very well.

I watch what plastic I throw away, since much of it will go into the ocean and be eaten by sea animals. In addition, Todd and I started recycling in 2008 and continue to do so.

There is so much more that I can do. My hobbies, for example, are not that great for the environment. I take a lot of flights every year. I drive sometimes long distances in order to go run. I need to switch to the eco-friendly light bulbs, but we have yet to do so. My treadmill uses a lot of energy. I love hot showers.

So, in many ways, shame on me, but I'm doing what I can and doing my best, so I'll continue to try and do better.